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©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2016; 22(13): 3511-3515
Published online Apr 7, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i13.3511
Published online Apr 7, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i13.3511
Thermal ablation in colorectal liver metastases: Lack of evidence or lack of capability to prove the evidence?
Sergio Sartori, Paola Tombesi, Francesca Di Vece, Section of Interventional Ultrasound, St Anna Hospital, 44100 Ferrara, Italy
Author contributions: Sartori S, Tombesi P and Di Vece F equally contributed to this paper with conception; and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Sergio Sartori, MD, Section of Interventional Ultrasound, St Anna Hospital, via A. Moro 8, 44100 Ferrara, Italy. srs@unife.it
Telephone: +39-532-239480 Fax: +39-532-239613
Received: November 10, 2015
Peer-review started: November 11, 2015
First decision: December 11, 2015
Revised: December 22, 2015
Accepted: January 11, 2016
Article in press: January 11, 2016
Published online: April 7, 2016
Processing time: 138 Days and 17.1 Hours
Peer-review started: November 11, 2015
First decision: December 11, 2015
Revised: December 22, 2015
Accepted: January 11, 2016
Article in press: January 11, 2016
Published online: April 7, 2016
Processing time: 138 Days and 17.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Phase III randomized controlled trials (RCT) on the efficacy of thermal ablation combined with systemic chemotherapy in colorectal liver metastases are lacking in literature, and it is very unlikely that ultimate efficacy of ablation treatments will ever be tested again by RCT because of the difficult accrual. However, the best available evidence points toward a benefit for the combination strategy using ablative treatments and chemotherapy.